


When Bitty Met Jack

by JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Baker!Bitty, Eric "Bitty" Bittle Didn't Go to Samwell, Explicit Language, Jack Zimmermann Didn't Go to Samwell, M/M, NHL Player Jack Zimmermann, POV Alternating, When Harry Met Sally AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29761362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle/pseuds/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle
Summary: All Eric Bittle wanted was a ride to Providence. All Jack Zimmermann wanted was someone to help drive.
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 131
Kudos: 123





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to [RabbitRunnah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RabbitRunnah/pseuds/RabbitRunnah) and [tchrgleek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tchrgleek/pseuds/tchrgleek) for the beta help! Any remaining mistakes are my own.  
> This fic is complete. Look for chapters will post Sundays and Wednesdays.

Jack pulled into the rink parking lot and stopped near a blond kid — young man, maybe, but he still looked like a kid — standing under the sign. He had a duffel bag at his feet and a big cardboard box behind him. 

While the kid definitely looked like someone waiting for a ride, he didn’t even look up as Jack cut the motor. His eyes were fixed on his phone, and his thumbs danced across the screen like raindrops pattering on pavement. Jack refused to believe anyone could type so fast — with their _thumbs —_ and have what they wrote make any sense at all.

Then again, most of what was on the Internet didn’t make any sense.

Jack beeped the horn.

The kid looked up, grinned, said, “Hey, there,” and looked down again.

Jack beeped longer.

This time, when the kid looked up, Jack was ready.

“Are you Eric? Eric Bittle? I’m Jack,” he said. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, just a minute,” Eric said, still typing. “I just want to finish this.”

This was a bad idea. Jack didn’t do well with strangers, and now he was going to be cooped up with this one for the next 16 hours, driving overnight from Georgia back to Providence. Georgia — the Falcs AGM, not the state — would owe him when he got back.

“You want to drive first?” Jack asked, by way of interrupting Bittle’s focus on whatever he was doing. 

It might make sense. Bittle presumably lived around here somewhere, if he was moving to Providence for school. Maybe he could navigate them through the Atlanta exurbs more easily than Jack. Not that getting on I-20 then hanging a left at I-95 was hard.

“What?” Bittle looked up again, and seemed to take in Jack and his car for the first time. “Wow. When Marcia said she knew someone who was driving to Providence, I thought it’d be in someone’s old truck, or maybe their mama’s minivan. You should probably take the first shift. You know, until I get used to it.”

“Uh, thanks,” Jack said. The Audi was a nice, mid-sized SUV, but it wasn’t anything exceptional. It was a year old already. But it was clean. Jack hit the button to open the rear hatch.

“Throw your gear in the back and get in then,” he said.

Bittle hefted the box, setting off a clatter that sounded like pots and pans, and shoved it into the cargo area next to Jack’s hockey bag. He stowed his duffle in front of it, then came around to climb in the passenger side. Once he was in the car, he offered Jack a wide, sunny smile, extended his hand and said, “I’m Eric Bittle, pleased to meet you.”

Jack breathed out, focused on staying calm, and shook Bittle’s hand.

“Jack Zimmermann,” he said. “Can we leave now? We have a long night of driving ahead.”

“Of course,” Bittle said. “You should know there’s a pie for you in my box, but I didn’t figure you could eat while we were driving, so maybe when we take a break? I thought of making pecan — that’s kind of my specialty — but then I wasn’t sure, because so many people are allergic to nuts, you know? And I didn’t know if you were. Are you? And then I was gonna make peach, because Georgia and all, but that seemed a little cliched, and we are just past the height of peach season, and well, the peaches at the market looked a little sad, and then —”

“No,” Jack said.

“What?”

“No, I’m not allergic to nuts,” Jack said. 

“Oh, that’s good.”

“But it really doesn’t matter —” Jack went on.

“No, because I made apple pie,” Bittle said.

“— because I don’t really eat sweets,” Jack finished.

“Aw, why not?” Bittle said, giving Jack a longer look than was comfortable from the next seat. “You can’t be on a diet, a big, strong guy like you.”

“Not a diet,” Jack said. “A nutrition plan. I’m an athlete. I have to take care of my body.”

“Well, I hope you don’t mind me saying it looks like you’re doing a fine job with that,” Bittle said. “But a little bit of pie won’t hurt. It’s really good — I won the blue ribbon for pies at the tri-county fair three years running, and that’s what I’m headed up north to do.”

“Win ribbons for pies?”

“No,” Bittle said. “Well, yes. In a manner of speaking, at least. I’m gonna get a degree in baking and pastry arts at Johnson and Wales, and then start my own business, maybe a bakery, maybe catering desserts, I’m not sure. I know it seems a little backward, getting an associate’s degree after I got my bachelor’s, but my mama and daddy wanted me to study something useful, and I did — I finished my business degree — and I saved up all the money I made selling pies and cakes and cookies on campus and now I can study what I want for a couple of years. And if I made enough money that way, you know you really should try my pie.”

“Sounds like you already have a business,” Jack said.

Bittle laughed.

“Not like a real one,” he said. “There’s always more to learn, and I’m really just a good — very good, if I do say so — home cook.”

Jack drove on for a few minutes, appreciating the near silence, broken only by the hum of the tires and the quiet country music playing on the radio. At least Bittle had stopped trying to get him to say he would eat the pie.

He could try to be friendly, he supposed.

“How do you know Marcia?” he asked. 

“From the rink?” Bittle said, like that should be obvious. “I skated there forever. Since I was little, at least. Not really competitively the last few years, but I still got out there whenever I could.”

“Skated competitively?” Jack asked. “Like figure skating?”

Bittle let out a put-upon-sounding sigh and said, “Yes, exactly like figure skating.”

There was a pause before Bittle said, “Oh, and you’re a professional hockey player, Mr. First-Line Center for the Providence Falconers.”

“Are you Googling me?” Jack asked. “Seriously? I’m right here.”

“Do you not want me too?”

“No,” Jack said. “I mean yes, I don’t want you too.”

“Afraid I’ll find something you don’t want to share?” Bittle said, but he put the phone down. “I could’ve just Googled you before.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jack asked. In his experience, most people did, if they knew they were going to meet him. Most were cool enough not to say anything about the overdose, but when they mentioned the Calder and the Selke, it was pretty obvious that they knew.

Bittle shrugged. “Why didn’t you Google me? I mean, you didn’t, right?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I mean, I wouldn’t expect to find anything. No offense, but you’re just a random guy who needed to get to Providence the same time I did.”

“And you were just some guy who was driving to Providence,” Bittle said. “Marcia said you were in to help with the hockey camp she was starting. I figured maybe you were a college player, having to get back to school.”

“No,” Jack said.

“No, you’re an actual NHL player,” Bittle said. “How cool is that?”

It was Jack’s turn to shrug. 

“So what were you doing in Georgia?’ Bittle asked.

“Marcia is a friend of a friend of the Falconers’ assistant general manager,” Jack said. “They know I want to go into coaching when I retire, and I like working with kids … and I think they’re thinking about affiliating with a minor league team in the area. Anyway, they asked if I would help out with a camp for bantams — uh, 13- and 14-year-olds? — who were interested in the game. But then last week the AGM called me and said she wanted me back tomorrow night for another charity thing, and it seemed like a good idea to not drive all night by myself.”

“And?” Bittle pursued. “How was it? Any of those kids gonna be your competition in 10 years?”

Jack heaved a sigh. This was the part he didn’t like. Hockey was a great game, a great sport. But no matter how athletically gifted those kids were, none of them had a chance.

“No,” Jack said. “If they were going to succeed in hockey, they would have had to start seven or eight years ago, more probably. And even if they could start now and pick it up, they don’t have the coaching or really even the level of competition they’d need.There are programs … but not many in this part of the country. I mean, you have a university that doesn’t even have an NCAA Division I team, or even a full-year ice rink.”

“Not like wherever you grew up?” Bittle asked. “Which was where, if I may ask?”

“Montreal, mostly,” Jack said. “And yeah, pretty much everyone there plays, and there are plenty of rinks and plenty of coaches. My dad taught me to skate pretty much as soon as I could walk.”

“That’s nice,” Bittle said, with a wistfulness that twisted something in Jack’s gut. “My daddy’s never skated in his life. He’s the high school football coach in our town, and when I wanted to skate instead of play football … well, let’s just say having a sissy boy for a son was not easy for him.”

Bittle picked up his phone again and was tapping away, but it looked like he was writing something instead of looking Jack up.

“So … you grew up around here?” Jack finally said.

“In Madison,” Bittle said. “We passed the exit a few minutes ago. And my Moomaw lived in Monroe — that’s closer to Conyers, where the rink is. She’s the one who taught me to bake — she used to watch me when Mama was at work when I was little. And Mama, too, I guess, but mostly Moomaw. Mama’s more a cook than a baker, if you know what I mean.”

Jack didn’t really, but he nodded anyway.

“And Mama is still my best friend. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been able to skate, because it ain’t like Coach was gonna drive me back and forth to the rink all the time.”

“Coaches don’t usually do that,” Jack said.

“What? No, Coach is my dad,” Bittle said. “Katya was my skating coach.”

That launched Bittle onto a long explanation of how he hated PeeWee football, how he started skating and how far he got before he realized he’d never be a world-famous Olympian. “Not without moving away anyway, and Mama and Coach weren’t about to do that.”

Jack refocused his attention on the road, following the signs for Florence, South Carolina, where they would veer north onto I-95. The sun was setting behind them as they approached and Jack noticed the headlights turn on.

Bittle was apparently looking too, sitting up straighter as the billboards became more frequent. 

“I’m going to pull off here,” Jack said. “We can get gas and eat dinner, and then you want the next shift driving? If you’re okay driving at night.”

“Of course,” Bittle said. “If I’m driving, do I choose the music? Because this is what my dad listens to, and I don’t want to fall asleep and get us both killed.”

“What if I do want to fall asleep?” Jack said. ”I’ve been driving for four hours.”

“I won’t play it loud.”

That apparently didn’t mean Bittle wouldn’t talk nonstop about the music. After gassing up and stopping at an IHOP (Jack was correct in his expectation that they would serve eggs as well as pancakes), Bittle slid into the driver’s seat and connected his phone to the car’s bluetooth speakers.

Jack approved of the way Bittle adjusted the seat and the mirrors and took a few moments to familiarize himself with the controls, but by the time he pulled out of the lot and headed for the highway ramp, he was bouncing in the seat and singing along to an upbeat song.

“You okay?” Jack said, reclining the passenger seat to a more comfortable angle. “You don’t need to go to the bathroom again?”

“I just did,” Bittle protested. ‘I’m just dancing along. I always dance to ‘Love on Top.’ How can you not?”

Jack turned to the window to try to rest. 

“I mean, it’s classic Bey,” Bittle went on. “Poppy and peppy and fun. Probably not my absolute favorite song of hers, but you can’t not like it, can you?”

Bittle paused. “Can you?” 

Wait. Jack was supposed to answer that.

“Sure,” he said. “I mean, no. Who did you say sings this?”

That was a mistake, at least if he wanted to sleep. Bittle chattered on and on about Beyonce Knowles-Carter, who yes, Jack had heard of, although he couldn’t have identified any of her songs. Jack tried to pretend to listen while his mind wandered to the coming season. The Falcs were in good shape, as long as Snow stayed healthy and Fitz got a little faster. Maybe one of the rookies would light a fire under Fitz, challenge him for his spot.

Maybe someone would light a fire under Jack, challenge him this year.

“Jack?” 

He must have finally dozed off, and now Bittle was waking him. Did he have more opinions about music to share?

“What?”

That might have come out a little more sharply than Jack wanted. Bittle’s hands gripped the wheel and his whole body went still, then slowly relaxed. Bittle kept his eyes on the road as he said, “Hello to you, too, sunshine. We’re just outside of Richmond, and it’s about 12:30. I’m gonna get us through the city, then I think we should change drivers.”

Shit. Jack had been out for a couple of hours at least.

“Whatever you want,” Jack said.

Bittle found an all-night gas station and tried to pull out his debit card to pay at the pump, but Jack waved him off. 

“If you want, you can get me a coffee,” he said. “Black.”

He watched Bittle head into the shop and took a deep breath, savoring the feeling of being alone for a few minutes.

When the tank was full, Jack adjusted the driver’s seat and mirrors and parked near the building. Bittle should be back by now, even if he had to make a stop in the bathroom. How long could it take to pee and get a cup of coffee, and maybe something for himself?

It didn’t matter if Jack had to go inside to find him. Jack should use the bathroom too, if he planned to get past D.C. and Baltimore and maybe even Philly before switching drivers again. 

Jack paused inside the door, looking for a sign pointing the way to the bathroom but seeing the mound of snack food heaped on the counter next to the register. There was also, Jack noted, a tall cardboard cup of coffee with a lid. The cashier, a guy about Bittle’s age, was talking to someone down one of the aisles, presumably Bittle.

“If you’ll forgive my saying so, you don’t seem much like the beef jerky type,” the cashier said.

“I’m not,” Bittle’s voice floated from the aisle. “I like my snacks sweet or salty. Or maybe both. But the guy I’m traveling with seems to have a thing for protein.”

The cashier threw a wink at Jack and said, “You don’t say,” just as Bittle emerged with five different packages of jerky to add to the pile of junk food.

Jack didn’t think he imagined the pink tinge in Bittle’s face when he said, “Hey, Jack. I’m just about ready.”

“You're not buying all that, are you?” Jack said. “We’re just about halfway, only eight hours to go.”

Bittle looked at the food, like maybe he’d picked up more than he intended to. He shrugged.

“If we don’t work our way through it, it’ll give me something to munch on until I get a kitchen set up.”

Whatever. By the time Jack was done in the bathroom, Bittle was waiting by the door, plastic sack of candy and chips and soda in one hand and Jack’s coffee in the other.

“Nice chatting with you, Brent,” Bittle said, opening the door. “I’ll be sure and stop here if I ever come this way again.”

“You do that,” the cashier — Brent — said, and winked again, this time at Bittle.

Jack shook his head at Bittle’s bag as they headed to the car.

“All that sugar will kill you,” he said. “You should eat more protein.”

“A little bit of sugar never killed anyone,” Bittle said. “But if you’re gonna insist, I’ll just have to keep all the jerky for myself.”

They buckled themselves in and Jack pulled back onto I-95. 

“You always flirt with cashiers?” he said.

“That wasn’t flirting,” Bittle said. “That was just some friendly chit-chat.”

“Bittle.”

“I didn’t think it was flirting until he winked at me?”

“I think he winks at everyone,” Jack grumbled. “He winked at me when you couldn’t see.”

“My cashier boyfriend was trying to two-time me?” Bittle gave a faux-horrified gasp. “And with Mr. Straight-as-a-Ruler here?”

Jack let that go by. It was the assumption most people made.

“Besides, I wasn’t talking any different than I would to my friends, but maybe that’s different because they’re mostly girls,” Bittle said. “Wait. I wonder if that’s what my mama is thinking.”

“What?” 

The non-sequitur was enough to make Jack react, jolting him out of the lull he fell into when Bittle talked. 

"My mama. She says men and women can't ever be friends," Bitty said. "Which was sort of a problem when my only friends were girls. Mama always said it was just natural for boys to want to ... you know."

"Have sex with them?" Jack said.

"Yeah, you know," Bitty said. "And I want to say, 'What about gay men? Can they not be friends with men, only with women? 'Cause if that's the case, take a look at me, Mama.’"

Bitty harrumphed and rearranged himself in the passenger seat. He turned away from Jack to stare into the darkness outside his window.

"The thing is, that's probably right," he continued. "Because I ain't never really had a close friend that was a boy, not since maybe second grade. But that's because they don't want to be friends with me. Afraid of what people will think of them, hanging out with a boy who figure skates and bakes, even if I'm not exactly flying the pride flag over Madison, Georgia."

Jack stayed silent for a full minute, watching the mileposts fly past in his headlights.

"Then what about bi people?" he finally said. "Who are we supposed to be friends with?"

As soon as Bittle turned to look at him, eyes wide, Jack cursed himself. He shouldn’t have said that. He wouldn’t have, without the false intimacy of the car speeding through the night like the two of them were alone in the world.

“Did you just … come out to me?” Bittle said.

“If you tell anyone I said it, I’ll deny it,” Jack said.

“I won’t tell,” Bittle said. “I’m 22 years old and I never told anyone I was gay before. Though I have to admit, I’m hoping to once I get to school in Providence. You think people will be alright with it?”

For a student studying baking?

“They’ll be fine,” Jack said. “But you told me.”

“No, I didn’t,” Bitty said. “I might have implied or insinuated, but …”

“You were trying for plausible deniability?” Jack said.

Bittle nodded. “Though I may have gone a bit too far.”

“Well, I won’t tell anyone about you, either,” Jack said. 

“No,” Bittle said. “It’s not like we ever have to see each other again, anyway.”

Jack sipped at his coffee as Bittle dropped off to sleep, most of his candy and chips uneaten in the sack at his feet.

By the time they changed drivers again, Jack’s eyes were droopy with fatigue, but he had a hard time falling asleep. It was only a few hours to Connecticut, where Jack intended to take over again since he knew where he was going in Providence. 

He watched Bittle drive for a while. Bittle was almost graceful behind the wheel, and Jack had no qualms handing over the keys. Given the size of most of the vehicles Jack saw in Georgia, Bittle was probably used to driving bigger trucks. And driving through the night meant they’d avoid the worst of the traffic, too. At least they weren’t going through Boston.

“I just realized I have to drive through New York,” Bittle said, like he’d read Jack’s mind.

“Just follow the signs to stay on 95,” Jack said. “The EZ Pass will take care of the tolls.”

Jack alternated between dozing and waking as Bittle drove, the early morning sun turning his hair gold and his brown eyes liquid. He was … cute. He’d probably have a very active social life in Providence.

As chatty as Bittle was at night, he quieted in the morning, first devoting his attention to the overlapping highways in the metro area, then, as their final destination drew nearer, he chewed his lip and seemed to turn in on himself.

They were making their way through Providence itself when Bittle blurted out, “We’re not friends, are we?”

“No,” Jack said, because a night in a car — even a long night and a thousand miles — did not make a friendship. “According to your mother, we can’t be, right?”

“Right,” Bittle said. “And I hardly know anything about you, ‘cept you play hockey and grew up in Montreal.You don’t like to share much, do you?”

Jack pulled up in front of the Johnson and Wales visitor center, where Bittle said he was meeting the roommate he’d picked out on Craigslist.

“Too bad, though,” Bittle said. “You’re the only living soul I know here.”

Jack pressed the button to open the rear hatch and Bittle retrieved his duffel bag and box. He set off toward the building — Jack didn’t see anyone outside who looked like they were waiting for a roommate — and Jack drove away, ignoring the feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him he should have done more. Waited with Bittle, at least gotten his phone number. Something.

No matter. He had a good four hours to sleep, then he could get a workout in and still make it to George’s function.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bitty and Jack's second encounter, five years after the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this little interlude chapter, and meet the supporting cast!

_*Five years later*_

“What about you, Jack? You ever going to settle down?”

It was the question Jack couldn’t seem to get away from this afternoon. Poots — baby Poots, a rookie five years after Jack, had finally popped the question, and the St. Martins were throwing an engagement party.

“Guess I just haven’t met the right one yet,” Jack said, for at least the fourth time. First Marty, who had retired three years ago but still took his role of team dad seriously; then Poots, who asked the question a little shyly, like he still wasn’t sure he was allowed; then Shannon, Poots’ fiancee, who had been coming to team events for years now; and finally Tater, who was just as unattached as Jack. 

“What about you?” Jack turned the question around. “You’re as old as I am. Why don’t you settle down?”

Tater guffawed, a belly laugh that Jack didn’t quite believe. After seven years on the same team, Jack had seen Tater use his big, boisterous personality as a shield to hide behind. Tater loved to laugh, loved to join in excursions to restaurants and clubs, but Jack hardly knew what drove him.

“What makes you think I don’t have a girl in Russia?” Tater asked.

“Because you’ve spent a total of three weeks there the last two years?” Jack said. “What about that girl in your building you mentioned? Or that newscaster … what was her name? Audrey?”

“Aubrey,” Tater said. “She's nice, but …”

“Not really your type?” Jack asked.

“And I’m not hers,” Tater said. “But she is good for when I need a date, yes?”

Why couldn’t Tater just date who he wanted? Unless … well, it would be a possibility, but certainly not one Jack could ask about.

“Oh, Aubrey has a friend, Samantha,” Tater said. “You should meet her.”

“Samantha Peters?” Jack asked. “The sportscaster?”

“That’s the one! She’s very smart.”

“Maybe,” Jack said. 

Samantha Peters had a face that was on more billboards than Jack’s. His celebrity — limited to Providence and hockey fans, but still — wouldn’t put her off or be too much of a draw.

“Fine,” Jack said.

“I’ll get her number,” Tater said. “You’ll call her?”

“Euhh …”

“Never mind,” Tater said. “Double date? I’ll set it up.”

The date was fine.

That’s what Jack told Shitty and Ransom and Holster the next week when Shitty called for a bros night when Jack was in town and had no game on Friday. Shitty had offered an excuse, said he knew Jack was a busy dude and all, and he wasn’t going to push the whole bros-before-women-who-were-romantically-and/or-sexually-appealing thing, and that Jack had just had a date, and if he wanted to spend his free night …

Jack finally cut him off.

“I don’t have plans on Friday. I’ll bring the beer.”

Well, some of the beer, Jack mentally amended.

“Jack, you warm the cockles of my heart,” Shitty said before ending the call.

Jack thought they were an unlikely group of friends, an NHLer who kind of regretted missing college and three Boston-based former college players. But Shitty had drafted Jack as a member of their friend group shortly after meeting at a benefit dinner, claiming he needed Jack to keep from feeling like a third wheel with Ransom and Holster. Jack privately thought Shitty saw how lonely he was and adopted him, and it was good for Jack to have friends outside the team.

It helped that no one expected him to be the driving force behind organizing get-togethers, or even to talk much when he was there. Unless, apparently, there was someone new in his life to talk about.

“So what was she like?” Shitty asked. “Did she swoon when you batted those baby blues at her? Did she appreciate the finest posterior on the East Coast?”

“Does she look like she does on TV?” Holster asked.

“Was it like being interviewed?” Ransom asked.

“Not really,” Jack said. “We just talked. She looks pretty much exactly like she does on TV, but she was smaller than I expected. Knows a lot about the business of sports.”

Shitty wiped a pretend tear from his eye.

“Do I get to be best man?”

“Uh, let’s not rush things?” Jack said. “It was one date — a double date at that.”

“Bro,” Ransom said. “Those can be hella awkward.”

It hadn’t been, really. Tater had planned a mini-golf excursion, of all things, and then confiscated the pencils and scorecards before they started.

“This is fun,” Tater said, glaring at Jack especially. “Not competition.”

The game allowed everyone to move around and created chances for the couples to separate and converse together. When Sam had taken the opportunity to say, “Who does he think he’s kidding? We’re totally keeping score,” Jack had laughed and stuck by her side the rest of the game, trading updates on how many strokes everyone had taken. Sam won, but Jack was only a couple of strokes behind. Tater, who tried trick shots on every hole, was way behind.

After that, it was natural to slide into the seat next to Sam for dinner and ask about her job, which led to an intense conversation about the ownership structures of different leagues.

“It wasn’t really awkward,” Jack said. “It was fun.”

“So when’s the next date?” Shitty asked.

“Next week,” Jack said.

* * *

“This is one of my favorite places in Providence,” Sam said, tugging Jack towards a small shop with a sign reading “Bitty’s Bites.” “It’s got these amazing desserts and things, but they’re all bite-sized, so you can try more than one. Or keep to your nutrition plan, you hockey robot.”

“Yeah?” Jack said. “What’s your favorite?”

“They have these totally irresistible mini apple pies,” Sam said, and Jack should have known then. But it wasn’t until a split second later that he did, when he looked up and saw Eric Bittle, the baking student who had driven with him from Georgia to Providence half a decade earlier.

“Hey, Sam, how ya doing?” Bitte was saying. So she must be a regular customer. “We’re almost out of apple — you’re just in time. But you should try the lemon chess ones too. Want one on the house? Maybe for your friend?”

Friend? Wasn't it obvious that they were dating? They were holding hands. And it wasn’t like Bittle didn’t know who Jack was. He had to know; the Falconers saw to it that Jack’s face was plastered all over the city.

At least Jack knew Bittle wasn’t flirting with Sam, not after the way he talked to Jack about how he wanted to live in a place where he could be out within hours of meeting him. Maybe Bittle really did talk to everyone that way.

“My boyfriend,” Sam said. “Jack. Jack, this is Bitty. Bitty, don’t take it the wrong way if he only eats one of those little pies. He’s just super disciplined.”

“Well, in that case, Jack, you’d better pick which flavor you want,” Bitty said. “I’ve got a half-dozen apple left, Sam. You want me to bag them all up for you?”

“We’ll stay here to eat, I think,” Sam said. “Maybe heat two up — and whatever Jack wants — and bag the rest?”

“Sure thing. I was closing up, but I have a few minutes. Coffee too?”

“Tea for me,” Jack said. “Decaf. And can I have one of the apple ones?”

Bitty had just brought the warmed mini-pies, coffee and tea to their table when Sam’s phone vibrated.

“Crap,” she said to Jack. “Work. I have to go. You stay and finish and I’ll see you later?”

She bent to kiss him goodbye.

“Later,” Jack said, and watched Sam hurry out the door.

By the time he turned back to the table, Bittle was standing there, twisting the rag he was using to wipe down the tables in his hands.

“I remember you!” he said. “Jack Zimmermann, and a midnight ride from Georgia. Eric Bittle.”

“I remember,” Jack said.

“You must remember my apple pie, huh?” Bittle said. “Don’t think I forgot that you never returned my pie tin that I left in your car. It’s a good thing it wasn’t one of my good ones.”

“Oh. I, uh, still have it, but I didn’t have your number. It looks like you’re doing good here,” he said. “Sam says the place is great. You know some people in Providence now, eh?”

“Sam’s been great,” Bittle said. “She happened by just a couple of weeks after we opened, and she got the station to do a piece on us. And you’re still with the Falconers, right?”

Jack nodded. 

“I’m honestly thinking I’ll retire from the Falconers,” Jack said. “Not yet, but when the time comes.”

Bittle grinned a little ruefully. “I can’t imagine retiring,” he said. “Not in my thirties, not really ever. I feel like I’ll make the hearse wait at my own funeral so I can pull one more batch out of the oven.”

He fell silent for a moment, then said, “This thing is new with Samantha? Wait, I know it is. A month?”

“Three weeks,” Jack said. “How could you tell?”

“A public kiss goodbye?” Bittle said. “And she’s still showing you her favorite places.”

“What about you?” Jack said, glancing at the small pride flag next to the register. “Not afraid to be out anymore?”

“I am so far out of the closet, you wouldn’t believe,” Bittle said. “I’m getting married! I dated around and around and around, and it was great … until it wasn’t. After a while, I got tired of the clubs and the awkward first dates and the whole do-you-stay-the-night-or-do-you-leave thing, and I figured I knew what I liked, and I met Marcus and here we are, getting married next month.”

“Congratulations,” Jack said. “The pie … it’s good.”

When Jack got up to leave, Bittle refused his money.

“Any friend of Sam’s is a friend of ours,” he said, opening the door for Jack. “Y’all come back now.”

Jack didn’t answer and Bittle locked the door behind him.

* * *

“I know it was fast, Lardo, but I like him, okay?”

“But marriage, Bits? You’ve known him less than a year. Besides, I thought you would want a long engagement. Better to plan the wedding and all. Don’t tell me you don’t have Pinterest wedding boards from when you were in middle school.”

Lardo took a sip of her coffee and nibbled at the edge of her miniature strawberry tart. “This is really good, by the way. The balsamic glaze is great.”

“First,” Bitty said, “Pinterest was not around when I was in middle school. And it’s not like I could go buying Brides Magazine. It would have been better to be caught with a Playboy.”

“But Playgirl was more your style?”

“Hush your mouth,” Bitty said. “Chowder’s on the register and I don’t want you to sully his innocent ears.”

Chowder waved at Lardo from his station a whole five feet away.

“What does sully mean, Bitty?” he asked.

“Second, Marcus just wants to go to the courthouse, nice and easy,” Bitty said. “No fuss, no muss.”

“No pain, no gain,” Lardo said. “Is that what you want? I mean, really?”

“I want to be married,” Bitty said. “So yes.”

“‘I want to be married’ is different from ‘I want to be married to Marcus,’” Lardo said. “What does he even do?”

“It was implied!” Bitty argued. “And we are going out for a nice dinner after. And Marcus and I are both getting new suits for the occasion. And I told you, he’s in IT.”

“But what does that mean?” Lardo said. “Is he writing code? Running web security? Staffing job noa help desk?”

“He’s hoping to get promoted to manager of his department,” Bittle said. “So what do you say? Will you be my best person of honor?”

“Of course, Bitty,” Lardo said. “I’ll support you, if that’s what you want.”

“Thanks,” Bitty said. “Hey, do you know who I met the other day? Or met again, I guess?”

“Who?”

“Jack Zimmermann.”

“Jack … is he like a sports something?”

“He’s the first-line center for the Falconers!” Chowder chimed in. “He’s like, probably going to have his number retired when he’s done playing. He’s been the face of the franchise for so long —”

“Face of the franchise?” Lardo said. “Is he the one whose face is on all the buses?”

“Yep,” Bitty said.

“And you re-met him?” Lardo said. “How’d you know him before?”

“I spent the longest night of my life with him.”

“What?”

“Not like that,” Bitty said. “I drove with him from Georgia to Providence when I was starting school up here. He’d been in Georgia for something or other and had to be back in Providence the next day, so he was looking for a co-pilot to drive straight through. A rink manager I know introduced us, and it was the most uncomfortable drive. He was like, silent the whole time, and I was already nervous about leaving Georgia and I babbled endlessly. I even came out to him accidentally.”

“Ugh. How’d that go?” Lardo said. 

Bitty had a brief flash of memory, of Jack quietly sharing that he was bi.

“Surprisingly fine,” Bitty said. “He had more of a problem with my junk food than what I wanted to do with my junk.”

“So he didn’t fit the homophobic jock stereotype?”

“I don’t think Jack Zimmermann would,” Chowder said. “Dex or Nursey might know more — I’ve only been following the Falcs since I got here — but he did some PSAs for You Can Play last year. Everyone laughed at them because he seemed so stiff in front of the camera, but I think that was maybe the joke?”

“You really don’t have to ask them,” Bitty said. “Or, like, mention this at all if they’re going to go crazy over it. It was one night, and I totally forgot about it until he came in right at closing with Sam the other day. Apparently they’re dating.”

Chowder stuck his head through the door to the kitchen.

“Dex! Did you hear Bitty? Sam — you know, Sam, who’s on TV? — she’s dating Jack Zimmermann!”

“Good for her,” Dex responded, in a tone Bitty thought was meant to put an end to the conversation.

Those boys. Bitty wasn’t sure how he ended up with three hockey-playing college students working for him, but he had to admit they were dependable and fun. Chowder had been the first to come on, looking for a job since club players were not eligible for scholarships at Providence College, and he was such a ray of sunshine that when he suggested his friend Dex, Bitty was expecting another cheery soul.

That wasn’t what he got, but Dex wasn’t mean, just taciturn, and he made up for any grumpiness with endless competence. He was the only one besides Bitty who regularly took on baking duties.

Derek Nurse was another kettle of fish entirely. Bitty thought he had cultivated an aesthetic when he was in college, but Nurse was completely dedicated to his look, and his poetry. But he had his own kind of charm, and he could handle the front of the house when Chowder wasn’t available.

Bitty was already worried about what he was going to do when they graduated and moved on in a couple of years.

Bitty leaned forward to whisper to Lardo.

“You know the best thing about those boys? They’re more interested in a hockey player stopping by here than the fact that I’m getting married.”

Lardo smiled.

“You keep telling yourself that,” she said. “I get to plan the bachelor party, right?”

But Bitty was right. Over the next week, all three of them found ways to ask about his acquaintance with Jack Zimmermann, Local Hockey HeroTM.

“I bet he’s way cooler in person,” Chowder said. “I mean, Caitlin says some people just aren’t at their best in front of a camera. And you got to spend like 16 straight hours with him. I bet he told you lots of great stories!”

“Not really,” Bitty said. “He didn’t tell me about his childhood or any team hijinks or anything like that. He did tell me to eat more protein, and he wouldn’t eat my pie. So.”

Nurse asked whether Jack had talked about his mother, and what kind of car he drove.

“When you see him at team things, he just looks like he has a hockey player’s sense of style,” Nurse said, which Bitty understood as “none at all.” “But his mother must have taught him something.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bitty said. “I mean, I’m sure she taught him _something,_ but I wouldn’t know anything about his personal style. We were spending 16 hours in a car, after all. And it was a very nice, but very unflashy, Audi SUV.”

“So what was he wearing?”

“Basketball shorts and a dry-fit T-shirt, I think,” Bitty said. “Plain black hoodie. Sneakers when he was driving with short white socks. Slides when he was passenger.”

“So he did make an impression!”

Dex’s question was more basic.

“Is his butt as big as it looks on TV?”

“Yes,” Bitty said.

But when they asked whether Bitty could introduce them, Bitty said, “I really don’t know him like that, y’all. It’s not like I saw him once in five years after getting here, and I don’t know that I’ll see him for another five years, or ever. He knows about the bakery, he can stop in if he wants, but if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’m pretty sure I ain’t exactly his cup of tea.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third meeting. This time it sticks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All from Bitty's POV

_*Five years later*_

__

Eric couldn’t meet Lardo’s eyes as he fiddled with the orange twist that balanced artfully on the rim of his cosmo glass.

__

“It’s terrible that he walked out on me, right?” he said. “I mean, it would be normal to be upset about that?” 

__

“Of course, Bits,” Lardo said. “You were married for almost five years. Of course you miss him.”

__

The “even if he is an asshole” was implied.

__

“I do, I guess,” Bitty said. “But you know what’s bothering me most?”

__

“What?”

__

“I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell my mother. You know I didn’t tell her I was gay until I was 22 and living a thousand miles away? I thought telling her might kill her,” Bitty said. 

__

“But it didn’t,” Lardo said. “And this won’t either.”

__

“No, I know,” Bitty said. “But it was like being married … it kind of made being gay not so different to her? It was like, sure, I might have a husband instead of a wife, but I still grew up and got married, just like I was supposed to. We could even bond over both having husbands! And now I’ve screwed that up.”

__

Lardo waited for him to take a gulp of his drink before bumping her shoulder into his.

__

“ _You_ didn’t screw that up,” she said. “He did. You’re a fucking catch, Bitty. Successful business owner, impeccable taste, hot in that cute boy-next-door kind of way. What else could anyone want?”

__

“You’re right, Lardo,” Bitty said. “I am a fucking catch. Who wouldn’t want me?”

__

He took another drink.

__

“Besides Marcus.”

__

“Marcus is a fool and an idiot,” Lardo said. “Name one thing that you miss about him.”

__

“He knew what to do when I screwed up my computer?”

__

“You can hire people for that.”

__

“He would wash the dishes while I baked when I was testing recipes,” Bitty said. “But, um. I guess not for a while?”

__

“Bits, don’t take this the wrong way, but was he a good lay?”

__

“Lardo! I am a gentleman!”

__

“Never mind,” Lardo said. “I’m just trying to find some kind of redeeming quality in your ex.”

__

“Oh my God, he’s my ex now!”

__

Bitty put his head on the bar and Lardo turned to survey the crowd in the bar.

__

“And that’s for the best,” she said. “You’ve got to believe that. You can do better. You could probably do better with someone in this bar.”

__

“I’m not ready,” Bitty said, face still resting on his arms on the bar.

__

“What?” Lardo said. “Don’t look now but your hockey player friend is here.”

__

“Which one?” Bitty said, looking up and craning his neck. “This isn’t Dex’s kind of place. Is it Nursey?”

__

He caught sight of Jack Zimmermann making his way toward the bar, coming from a table of very large men.

__

“Oh, no,” he said. “Hide me, Lardo. No, he won’t remember me anyway. Act normal. He’ll get his drinks and —”

__

“Bittle? Eric Bittle?”

__

“Hi, Jack,” he said, sitting up on his bar stool again. “How’re you doing? I haven’t seen Sam at the shop for a while.”

__

Actually, now he thought of it, he hadn’t seen her on TV, either.

__

“She moved a few months ago,” Jack said. “Got a job at a station in Houston. Bigger market, step up for her, all that.”

__

“Well, good for her.” Bitty raised his glass and took another gulp. He really should remember that these were meant to be sipped, not guzzled. “Must be tough with you stuck here, at least during the season.”

__

“I’m retiring after this year,” Jack said. “That’s why I’m here, actually. I just told the guys, and they wanted to take me out to celebrate. Not really my kind of place.”

__

Bitty snorted.

__

“Not mine either, to be honest. I’m usually tucked up in bed by this time, but my friend Lardo here made me come.”

__

Bitty turned to introduce her, but Lardo had disappeared, leaving a half-empty cosmo in front of her stool.

__

“You have something to celebrate?” Jack said, then turned to the bartender who had finally made her way to him. “Another pitcher of Stella? And a seltzer with a twist. Oh, and another round of what they’re having.”

__

Jack pointed to Bitty and Lardo’s drinks.

__

“Aww, you didn’t have to do that,” Bitty said. “But thanks. No, she made me come out to drown my sorrows.”

__

Jack looked down at Bitty’s naked left hand. There was still a dent around his finger where his wedding ring fit.

__

“Got it in one, mister,” Bitty said. “Marcus left me. Told me he wanted a trial separation. He was gonna get a hotel somewhere, try to get his head together, he said. Then I came home from work one day to find all his stuff — and half my stuff — gone. He moved in with someone he met at work. Never went to a hotel, never intended to come back.”

__

Bitty swallowed the rest of his drink to make room for the new one the bartender was setting down.

__

“And the thing is, I know I’ve been busy and not home as much, especially since we opened the second shop, and I probably needed to work more on the marriage, but every time I would try to connect with him over the last few months, he just brushed me off,” Bitty said. “I thought he was trying to be accommodating. Maybe he was, but not to me.”

__

Bitty took a sip of his new drink, straightened his shoulders, and said, “But enough of my sob story. Are you off to Houston when the season ends, then?”

__

“Euh, no,” Jack said. “She said long-distance would be too hard, and a clean break would be better for both of us.”

__

“Yeah?” Bitty said. “Was it?”

__

Jack shrugged. “Hard to compare what it is to a hypothetical, you know? But maybe. She knew I was thinking of retiring, and we talked about getting married, starting a family … and she didn’t want that. Not just ‘Let me get my career on the right path first.’ Just, not what she saw doing with her life. She said she thought I was on the same page, because if I did want to get married, why did I wait five years to bring it up? And wait until I wanted to retire? She said it sounded like I was just thinking about my life and my plans and now that I wasn’t going to have hockey I wanted to … tie her down, I guess?”

__

Bitty blinked. He had never heard Jack put so many words together.

__

“How many of those beers have you had?” he asked.

__

“One,” Jack said, picking up the glass of seltzer. “This is me. Looks like you’ve had a few, though. Where’d your friend go?”

__

“Dunno,” Bitty said. “She keeps telling me I can do better than Marcus, but joke’s on her. Here I am talking to a hockey player, who is here with a bunch of hockey players. Even if you were so inclined, which I know you’re not, ain’t nothing gonna happen.”

__

“Well, take my phone number,” Jack said. “If she doesn’t come back, text me and I’ll see you get home okay. As a matter of fact, text me when you’re home safe even if she does come back.”

__

“This is my last one,” Bitty said, lifting the drink Jack had bought him. “Even if I go in late, I do have to work tomorrow. No time for wallowing. But I’ll text you. Thanks for the drink.”

__

As soon as Jack took the pitcher and his seltzer back to his table, Lardo reappeared.

__

“Well?”

__

“Lardo. He’s a hockey player. Here with his teammates. What did you think was going to happen?”

__

“You can’t think every hockey player is straight?” she said. “You didn’t see the way he zoomed in on you.”

__

Bitty ignored that and said, “Even if every hockey player isn’t straight, none of them are out. Not at the NHL level. So I’m pretty sure they’d all want their teammates to think they were straight.”

__

“Uh-huh. Which is why he let his friends’ beer get warm for ten minutes while he talked to you and gave you his digits,” Lardo said.

__

“He just got dumped too,” Bitty said. “And he thinks I’m a messy drunk.”

__

“Did he say that?”

__

“The dumped part? Yes. The rest was implied.”

__

That didn’t stop Bitty from texting Jack once he was safely in his apartment,

__

_Home safe. If you want, come by the shop tomorrow so I can thank you for the drink. I can’t promise you’ll like it, but we’ve been trying meat pies and quiches at lunchtime. Have one on me and tell me what you think._

__

Jack didn’t respond until morning; he had a team obligation and couldn’t come and Bitty mentally wrote him off as a potential new friend. Apparently, Jack was fine with meeting once every five years.

__

Then Jack texted again.

__

_Would it be ok if I came tomorrow?_

__

_Absolutely!_ Bitty texted back. Then, not to sound too eager for a tete-a-tete with Jack, added, _Bring a friend if you want._

__

The next day, Bitty did not take his usual 11 a.m. lunch break. Or, more accurately, he didn’t snag a couple of the newer pies to make sure they were what he wanted them to be and eat them at his desk while he did paperwork. 

__

He did do the orders and pay supply bills, though. He wanted to be able to take a real break when — if — Jack showed up. It shouldn’t be important to him. He knew that. Who was Jack to him? An acquaintance he had met three times now. Sure, the first was an extended meeting, but it hadn’t been followed up by anything. And sure, Jack was attractive. Anyone would be blind not to notice that. But Jack had never given the slightest sign of being attracted to Bitty. Or even wanting anything to do with Bitty at all, until the other night in the bar. Now all they had in common was the experience of being cast aside.

__

But if Jack was in the market for a new friend, well, so was Bitty. He still had Lardo, but his beloved frogs had graduated and moved on to full-time jobs or moved away, and he hadn’t realized how different his life would be without the constant nagging guilt about spending time at work instead of at home with Marcus. Now he needed a reason — but please, God, not a guilt-inducing one — to put work aside more often.

__

Once the orders were sent and bills filed, Bitty wandered into the front of the house.

__

“You want your break now, Denice? I might have a guest in a bit, but I can cover the register until then. And this might be your last chance before Tony comes in at two.”

__

“Sure thing, Bitty,” Denice said. “I have some reading to do, so I’ll just be in back. Yell if you need me.”

__

“Take some food,” Bitty said.

__

“Of course,” she said, grabbing a mini-quiche and a custard tartlet.

__

Bitty busied himself filling orders for pickup, serving the late morning customers and restocking napkins and sugar. By 11:45, there was a short line, and by noon, Bitty called Denice back up front to help.

__

He was so busy heating and plating and bagging food that he didn’t notice that Jack had come in and gotten in line until Jack reached the register.

__

“Euhh … I think I’m supposed to try a quiche?”

__

Jack’s accent penetrated Bitty’s focus and he looked up. There were only two people waiting after Jack.

__

“This one’s on me, Denice,” Bitty said. “Jack’s a friend of mine, and he said he’d come taste some things for me today. Jack, go have a seat and I’ll be with you in just a sec.”

__

“Oh,” Jack said. “Sure.”

__

Bitty saw him tuck a bill in the tip jar before he made his way to a table in the back corner.

__

“You want to go take care of him, Bitty?” Denice said. “I’ve got this.”

__

“Thanks,” Bitty said. He put a spinach quiche and a chicken pot pie and a steak and ale pie in the warming oven and set a tray with two plates, cutlery, napkins and water glasses.

__

When the pies were warm, he carried the tray over to the table.

__

“I’m getting myself some coffee,” he said. “Do you want some?”

__

“You still have tea?” Jack said. “Earl Gray, if you have it in decaf. Something herbal if you don’t. But not chamomile.”

__

“Okay,” Bitty said. “I think we have decaf black tea, but not Earl Gray. We do have several herbal varieties. Do you want something minty? Something fruity?”

__

“I’ll leave it up to you.”

__

“Fine, but if I guess wrong, tell me and we can try something else,” Bitty said.

__

He went back to the counter and studied the tea display, settling on a lemon ginger tea that he sometimes enjoyed.

__

“Okay,” Bitty said, setting the drinks down. “I brought over a steak and ale pie, a chicken pot pie and a spinach quiche. The lunch pies are bigger than our sweet pies, but I thought you might need more than one. If you want to take parts of all these, I can eat the rest.”

__

“This is way more than I would usually eat,” Jack said, but he cut into the chicken pot pie and put half on his plate. He took a forkful, chewed, swallowed and smiled.

__

“I don’t know why you’d ask me about food — it’s not really my thing — but that tastes good. Lots of chicken in there,” Jack said.

__

“Food is everyone’s thing,” Bitty said. “Everybody’s got to eat, so it might as well taste good.”

__

“This is just eggs and spinach, right?” Jack said, cutting the mini-quiche in half. 

__

“Basically,” Bitty said.

__

“It’s good,” Jack said.

__

“Okay, one more,” Bitty said, cutting the steak and ale pie and putting half on Jack’s plate. “Steak and ale pie.”

__

“This isn’t going to get me drunk, is it?” Jack said, poking at it with his fork.

__

“God, no,” Bitty said. “We simmer the filling for hours, and there’s not much ale in it to begin with. Try it.”

__

This time, Jack went right back for a second bite after the first, then a third.

__

“Like that one?” Bitty said. “Good to know.”

__

“You should eat too,” Jack said. “I didn’t come just for you to watch me eat.”

__

“I’m not just watching you eat,” Bitty said. “I’m getting your opinion. But I am hungry.”

__

Bitty felt Jack’s eyes on him as he served himself portions of each of the three dishes. “You always do this?” Jack said. “Make other people eat before you do?”

__

“No,” Bitty said. “Well, I mean, if I cooked I’m usually serving. But once that’s done — and I make sure the stove is off — I eat.”

__

“So yes?” Jack said.

__

“But I also taste everything while I’m cooking,” Bitty said.

__

“I was just wondering if you were cooking for Marcus all the time,” Jack said. “And not cooking for yourself now. It was weird when Sam left — neither one of us were good cooks, and we didn’t have schedules that allowed a normal dinner hour, but we’d try to eat together at least once most days. When she left, it was hard to find motivation to do anything about food.”

__

“What about your nutrition plan?”

__

“I ate,” Jack said, “because I was supposed to. Mostly food from the training center, or protein shakes or boxed meals the nutritionist ordered. But it wasn’t … I don’t know. It wasn’t anything to look forward to.”

__

“Yeah,” Bitty said. “I know what you mean.”

__

“I’m sure it’s different for you,” Jack said. “Since you actually know how to cook.”

__

“Not really,” Bitty said. “I just keep eating the food here and not cooking at home. It’s like I don’t want to go in the kitchen.”

__

“Did you and Marcus spend a lot of time together there?”

__

Bitty snorted.

__

“Not hardly,” he said. “Not lately, at least. He liked the food, but mostly he tried to get me out of the kitchen so I could pay more attention to him. I probably should have noticed when he stopped doing that. No, I don’t like going in there because he took some of my stuff, including the stand mixer he bought me when we got married.”

__

“So buy a new one,” Jack said. 

__

“I will,” Bitty said. “Just … I haven’t yet.”

__

Jack stood and started to stack the dishes.

__

“I’ve got those,” Bitty said. “Don’t worry about them.”

__

“Fine,” Jack said. “I have an idea. Do you have a day off?”

__

“Mondays,” Bitty said. “Sometimes Sunday afternoons, too.”

__

“We’re leaving for Raleigh Monday morning, but I’m free Sunday late afternoon and evening,” Jack said. “Let’s go buy you a mixer, and then get dinner.”

__

“You’re not planning to — “ Bitty said. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but you know I can buy my own mixer?”

__

“I know,” Jack said. “I wasn’t planning to pay for it. Just give you some moral support. And company for dinner. We can split the bill.”

__

Bitty considered. It would be good to get out of the house, and to replace the mixer. Even if the cost would be a stretch with Bitty suddenly paying rent by himself. And it would be good to do it with someone who wouldn’t spend the whole time abusing Marcus. It was time to move on. Jack was in the same situation. He understood. And there was no pressure to dress up or try to impress Jack, who was clearly not in the market for a boyfriend.

__

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it. It sounds fun.”

__

The outing was fun, more fun that Bitty had expected. This wasn’t the same Jack that spent 16 hours in a car with Bitty and not mentioned that his father was a hockey legend and his mother was movie and modeling goddess Alicia Robinson — something Bitty had only found out when he Googled Jack after he dropped Bitty off. This wasn’t even the same Jack that had come into the shop with his new girlfriend, looking for all the world like he wanted the floor to swallow him up when he recognized Bitty.

__

This Jack asked Bitty a thousand questions about the items in the kitchenware store: What was this? A whisk? Why did it look different from this other whisk? What was the difference between a blender and a food processor? And why would anyone want both of those and a stand mixer?

__

Bitty was happy to expound, until Jack started asking about the differences between cast iron and anodized aluminum cookware.

__

“It’s like you’re trying to equip a kitchen from scratch,” Bitty finally said. “You’re an adult who’s been on your own for more than a decade, Jack. Surely you have at least the basics.”

__

Jack shrugged.

__

“Define basics,” he said. 

__

Bitty thought.

__

“Okay. For someone who cooks for themselves, but not a lot, I’d say you would need two or three skillets in different sizes, maybe the smallest one non-stick for eggs and the biggest cast iron so it can go in the oven. The same number of saucepans with lids. Some kind of a big pot, maybe a Dutch oven that can also go in the oven. Um. A casserole dish. Baking pans. Pyrex is probably the most versatile. You can do a flat cake in those. You’d need a nine-by-fourteen, an eight-by-eight square … a muffin pan, too, and a rimmed baking sheet. A roasting pan.”

__

Bitty stopped when he realized Jack was staring at him.

__

“Well, um, that would do it for pans, I guess,” Bitty finished lamely. 

__

“You really need all that?” Jack asked. “Because if those are the basics, no, I don’t have them. Maybe I should get more. Learn how to bake something.”

__

“I’d be happy to teach you,” Bitty said. “But maybe at my place? Because I guarantee, I do have all that.”

__

“Plus a lot more, I bet,” Jack said.

__

Bitty bought his mixer, swallowing hard and opting for the six-quart model. He did choose a soft blue color, one that would coordinate with his kitchen but be different from his old red one. New beginnings and all that.

__

After that outing, Bitty found himself texting Jack, first a couple of times a week and then almost every day. More surprisingly, he started to look forward to Jack’s texts, whether they were responding to him or out-of-the-blue photographs of geese from NHL cities all over North America, or some of the worst jokes Bitty had ever heard.

__

He was looking at a selfie Jack sent from Chicago, clearly taken from a hair stylist’s shop. 

__

His hair was actually styled for a change.

__

“Wow,” Denice said, looking over her shoulder. “That’s your friend, right? I’d swipe right on him.”

__

“It’s just a photo to show me his new haircut,” Bitty said. “I think.”

__

_Just get your hair cut? Looks good,_ he texted.

__

“Are you in a position that he’d want your approval?” Denice asked.

__

_Just got all of them cut,_ Jack replied.

__

Bitty snorted.

__

“Lord, no,” Bitty said. “We’re just friends.”

__

And they were. Bitty and Jack texted and called and sometimes went out for food when Jack was in town. Or Jack came to Bitty’s for dinner, though he had never repeated his request for a cooking lesson. Bitty once cooked in Jack’s condo and cried over the high-end appliances and amenities and the lack of equipment to use in them. There were two skillets, a battered saucepan, and a metal nine-by-fourteen pan that could be used to roast something. He spied his old pie plate on a top shelf, above a whole row of different flavors of protein powder.

__

When Jack gave Bitty a pair of tickets to a home Falconers game, Bitty took Lardo and introduced her to Jack afterwards. Jack invited Bitty to a Samwell college game — one Jack attended in a plain red hoodie with a baseball cap pulled over his eyes — with Shitty and Ransom and Holster, and then paid for ice time for all of them when Bitty talked about his long-dormant figure skating career.

__

They were friends. They were both single, and available, and there was no reason Bitty should not be looking for dates, especially not now that Marcus took up less and less space in his head. That haircut — the selfie that looked like a profile pic — that’s probably what Jack was doing. 

__

That evening, when Bitty got home, he adjusted the lighting in his kitchen, put his phone on a stand with a remote shutter switch, and took a selfie of himself smiling his sunniest smile.

__

Time to put himself back on the market.

__


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the pining begin. Or, y'know, become more obvious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the POV switch in the middle.

Putting himself back on the market was one thing, Bitty decided. Finding someone he wanted to invest in, that was something else.

“It’s not like my standards are that high,” Bitty said on a Monday afternoon visit to the John Brown House Museum. “I mean, I want to date a guy that has a few thoughts, maybe, and someone I find attractive. Is that so much to ask?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, stepping back from the map on the wall that had captured his attention. “Depends what’s attractive to you, I guess, and what qualifies as a thought. Do you have a type?”

Oh. Why yes, Bitty did, but he couldn’t exactly say, “Tall. Built, with dark hair and light eyes” to Jack. They were friends, and he didn’t want to make Jack uncomfortable.

“Most guys I date are bigger than me,” Bitty said. “But then most guys are. I don’t know — I like it if a guy’s at least in shape? And if he’s interested in something — almost anything really — outside himself. Oh, and he has to like to eat.”

“That doesn’t sound like too much,” Jack said. “But even if it is, so what? You want what you want. You settled for Marcus and look what happened. You want to see the dining room next?”

“Who said I settled for Marcus?” Bitty said, following Jack along the corridor. 

“I thought you did,” Jack said. “But I might be remembering wrong. What did you like about him? I mean, at the beginning.”

Bitty tried to think past the messy end of his marriage to the rose-tinted beginning. Marcus had come on strong, not in a creepy way, just enthusiastic. He let Bitty know he enjoyed his company, enjoyed his body, wanted to be with him.

“He loved me,” Bitty said. “Or he said he did. What about you? Working on meeting that special someone?”

Jack blew a breath out his nose.

“Like you said, it’s hard,” he said. “Sam and I were so similar, so compatible. We were both competitive and driven, both focused on our careers … It worked until I started to think about what else I wanted. And everyone I meet — everyone the guys introduce me to, or I find on an app, they all …”

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “This sounds really arrogant. But they all seem to make it their ambition to make me like them.”

“Lord,” Bitty said. “I was hoping it would be easier for you. You have twice the pool to choose from!”

“Not really,” Jack said. “Not unless I want to come out. I haven’t been with a guy for years. I haven’t even had sex since Sam left.”

“You haven’t —”

Jack shook his head.

“No,” he said. “You haven’t either, though, right? If you can’t find anyone you like?”

“Who says you have to like a person to sleep with them?” Bitty said. “As long the guy’s not repulsive, and we both want to get off, why not? Who does it hurt?”

Jack didn’t answer, just leaned over to get a better look at a place setting.

“Do you know what all those forks are for?” he finally asked.

“Let me think back to cotillion,” Bitty said. “That one’s a fish fork, and salad and entree. But that is elaborate. I’m all for good manners, but this is a little excessive, don’t you think?”

“Cotillion is like, manners lessons?” Jack asked. “Some of the kids in my camp in Georgia that summer talked about it.”

“Yeah,” Bitty said. “And ballroom dance lessons, and there are some service projects, and a big dinner-dance at the end. No dates, but boys had to dance with girls and vice versa.”

“I don’t think manners should be about things like which fork you use,” Jack said, leading the way into a sitting room. “They should be about making sure people are at ease. That’s what Maman always said — you shouldn’t use manners to exclude people.”

“So like, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are to make people feel good, not just to get what you want?” Bitty said. “I think it sounds good in theory, but that’s not how it ends up working, is it? I mean, you don’t want a free-for-all, people scratching their behinds in public and chewing with their mouths open no matter how comfortable it makes them.”

“No, but those things make other people uncomfortable,” Jack said. “There’s a reason it’s polite to be clean and dressed appropriately, but when that comes with all kinds of rules about what it means to be ‘appropriate’ that no one but the in-group knows —”

“Then it becomes a way of excluding people,” Bitty finished for him. 

“That’s why etiquette books like Emily Post could be seen as a force for equality,” Jack said. “With rules that were clearly laid out for everyone.”

“And things like cotillion lessons, I suppose,” Bitty mused. “But you do have to pay for those. And, I guess, know they’re a thing in the first place. The first barrier is seeing there are barriers?”

“Something like that,” Jack said.

He followed Bitty upstairs to look at the bedrooms, which, for a famous mansion, seemed kind of small.

“The only heat they had was the fireplace, originally,” Jack said. “You wouldn’t want them too big. That’s why they had curtains around the bed, too. To keep the body heat in.”

“Not to make sure the maid didn’t see you … uh, going at it when she brought in breakfast?” Bitty said.

Jack blushed. 

“Maybe that was a side benefit?” he said. 

“That’s a modern manners question that wasn’t covered in cotillion,” Bitty said. “How do you know when it’s okay to leave after having sex with somone? I mean, I tell everyone I hook up with that I have to work early in the morning, and frankly, I’d rather go home and sleep and shower in my own bathroom before work than have to crawl out of their bed at four in the morning, still go home to change, and then go to work. But if they want to cuddle afterwards — and don’t get me wrong, I like a good cuddle — then they go to sleep, I feel like I’m sneaking out.”

“What about when they’re at your place?” Jack asked.

“Doesn’t usually happen that way,” Bitty said. “Wanna get out of here? I can make dinner.”

“Only if you let me help this time,” Jack said. “And I wanted to bring something besides beer to Ransom and Holster’s party this weekend. Maybe you could show me how to make a pie?”

“Or I could just make one for you,” Bitty said. “But then I’d never get my pie plate back. Of course, if I lend you one to make your own, I might still never get it back.”

“You could use those disposable foil ones,” Jack said. 

“Bite your tongue,” Bitty said.

That didn’t stop Jack from chirping Bitty non-stop about his fussiness when Bitty set him to peeling apples and showed him how to mix pie dough by hand (“You are not using a food processor the first time you do this, Mr. Zimmermann. You need to get a feel for how it comes together.” “Because it’s not right until you say it’s right, Bittle?” “You bet your big ass.”)

The thing was, Jack wasn’t half bad when it came to peeling and slicing, and he was careful not to overwork the dough. Sure, he’d been helping Bitty in the kitchen for a while now when Bitty cooked for them, but Bitty felt strangely proud when Jack followed his directions to weave a lattice top that was only a little wonky.

“Do you ever get tired of this?” Jack said, as he folded the last strip into place. “Baking, I mean?”

“You’re going to crimp the edge like so now,” Bitty said, demonstrating. “No, not really. This is different from what I do at work, anyway. That’s all a process now, with written instructions, and everything is mini, because that’s our thing. The only time I get to bake by myself is early in the morning anyway. Kind of like … when you play pick-up hockey with your friends? Same game, but the rules are different when it’s just for fun.”

Bitty slid the pie into the oven when the chicken that was roasting came out, then turned and almost crashed into Jack, who steadied him by putting a large hand on each of Bitty’s arms, almost like he was going to … . Well, crap.

“No checking in my kitchen,” Bitty said. “This has to sit before we can carve it. Go watch some sportsball or something while I put a salad together.”

Jack went through to the living room and flipped on the TV, but put on a history documentary.

Bitty stuck his head in the fridge while he pulled out vegetables.

“Jack is a friend,” he muttered into the cold, hoping it would make the blush he knew was in cheeks fade. “He’s not into you. Do not hit on your friends.”

A sneaky voice from deep in Bitty’s brain whispered. “He’s bi. He might be into you.”

“He’s not,” Bitty muttered to himself. “He’s not.”

“What’s that?” Jack said from the living room. 

“Nothing,” Bitty said. “Talking to myself.”

The pie didn’t make it to Ransom and Holster’s party. Jack stayed later than usual to watch the end of his documentary, and they both were hungry for dessert, and, well, it was worth it to watch Jack eat a maple-crusted apple pie.

“So you do like it,” Bitty said. “You should have eaten that first one I made for you.”

“Of course I like your pie, Bittle,” Jack said. “You know that. And I did eat it.”

“Not where I could see it.”

But then Shitty told Jack to bring Bitty along to the party, and Bitty brought an entire selection of pies, so that was fine.

“That was fun,” Bitty said, climbing into Jack’s car for the ride back to Providence. His head was swimming a little from the free-flowing alcohol, but he knew without asking that Jack was sober. Jack was responsible like that. “A little loud, but fun. We should get our friends together more.”

When Bitty said it, he was thinking about how Dex and Nursey, still in the Providence area, would get along with Jack’s former hockey-player friends, but the first opportunity turned out to be a dinner with Jack, Bitty, Lardo and Shitty. 

It should have been fine. Even if Bitty was harboring a masochistic hope that Jack and Lardo would hit it off, because that way, if Bitty couldn’t have Jack, it would be a way to keep both his best friends in his life.

Of course it didn’t work out that way. Jack was coming off a humiliating loss the night before, in a tough game that Bitty suspected had left Jack with bruised ribs. Jack was quiet, the way he got sometimes when he was deep in his own head. Bitty could usually nudge Jack out of those moods by maintaining a steady stream of chatter about anything but hockey, but tonight there was Lardo with her new show to talk about, and Jack wasn’t engaging in the conversation. Lardo didn’t seem to see anything amiss with Jack’s quietness, and maybe that put Shitty on edge, because he decided to talk down the entire American South, which, according to him, was full of “homophobic cockholes.”

“Have you even been anywhere in the South?” Bitty asked him incredulously. Sure, there were plenty of people who were homophobic in the South — Bitty knew that for a fact — but not all of them were. Besides, it was like insulting someone’s little brother. They might pick on the kid all day long, but they wouldn’t let anyone else do it.

Lardo, at least, recognized Bitty’s temper rising and turned the conversation to the art scene in Boston, asking Shitty’s opinion of various galleries and shows. He was more than happy to expound, and Bitty sank back into his meal, joining Jack in silent sullenness.

Lardo, bless her, and Shitty carried the conversation for the rest of the evening, with Lardo gently prodding at Shitty’s wilder assertions about the upper crust law firms he opposed in court and Shitty asking when and where he could see Lardo’s new show. They seemed an unlikely pair, but if Lardo liked him, good for her.

When they left the restaurant, Lardo ordered a ride and Shitty immediately asked if he could share.

“If you want,” she said, and Bitty saw the slightly wicked grin that played on her face.

Jack watched the car drive away, then looked at Bitty.

“But Shitty lives in Boston,” he said. “And his car’s at my place.”

“I’m sure he’ll pick it up eventually,” Bitty said. “But now I have to order my own ride.”

“I can drive you,” Jack said, handing his ticket to the valet. “I could have driven all of us.”

* * *

Jack wasn’t sure about Lardo at first. 

He knew she was an amazing artist, and it went without saying she was a fine person. She wouldn’t have been Bittle’s best friend otherwise.

But on the occasions when Jack met her, she always seemed … kind of intense? Maybe even a little intimidating, which was ridiculous, because he was a professional hockey player and she was half a head shorter than Bittle. But still.

Once she started hanging out with Shitty’s Samwell crew, he saw a whole different side of her. The first party Shitty invited her to, she decimated Ransom and Holster at beer pong — and that was with the liability of playing with Shitty. She chugged beers and she belched and she out-broed the bros. 

And, since Lardo was spending so much of her free time with Shitty, Jack found himself thrown into Bittle’s company even more often. Which was … nice.

Well. Mostly it was nice. Sometimes it was a little uncomfortable, like when Bittle would have to leave to meet a date he had just matched with online. It was fine for people to date around, and fine for them to have sex with people they weren’t in committed relationships with. And it wasn’t like Bittle rubbed it in his face.

It was just a certain way he said, “I have to go now. I’m meeting someone.”

Because if it wasn’t a date, it would be “I have to go now. I told Lardo I’d meet her for coffee,” or “I have to go now. I’m interviewing a new counter person for the Wickenden Street shop.”

It wasn’t like Jack was jealous. He’d never seen the appeal of that kind of casual sex. Besides, the dates didn’t always end in sex. Some of them were disasters, and those were the ones Bittle usually told Jack about: the ones who looked nothing like their profile photos, the ones who Bittle said just gave off a creepy vibe, the one guy who pulled a pet rat out of his backpack _at the restaurant table, Jack!_

Jack wasn’t jealous of the dates, or the sex, but he sometimes wondered what all these guys had that he didn’t. It couldn’t just be Bittle’s attention, because he had that, maybe more than anyone else, now that Lardo was occupied with Shitty and even talking about moving to Boston.

Did Jack want to sleep with Bittle? He rolled the idea around in his head when he had some downtime on an off-day in California. Bittle was cute, of course, anyone could see that, and to Jack, he was hot. He ticked all Jack’s boxes. But they were such good friends now, and Jack didn’t know if he could keep that up if they had sex. He was always kind of all or nothing, in or out, and he didn’t know if he had it in him to be sexually intimate with Bittle (once? a few times? a lot of times?) and go back to the easy companionship they had.

Besides, there was one thing all those guys had that Jack didn’t. They could be seen with Bittle, as in, being _with Bittle._ Jack’s friends — even some of the guys on the team, now — knew he was bisexual, and he didn’t feel like he owed a big coming-out to the public. It wasn’t anyone’s business. But if he so much as held Bittle’s hand in the park, it would be a story. Better to keep things as they were, at least until the end of the season. Once he retired?

Maybe.

It wasn’t a decision he had to make now. Now he could appreciate having Bittle in his life. Bittle, who talked as much as Shitty, but whose voice somehow made Jack relax instead of tense up. Bittle, who learned to cook things that Jack could eat, but still encouraged him to have a mouthful of something sweet, too. Bittle, who watched movies online with Jack when he was on the road and who put up with Jack asking him to text when he was home after dates, just to be sure he was safe.

“What if it’s not until morning?” Bittle asked.

“I think we both know you don’t do that,” Jack said.

Jack tucked the thought of a sexual relationship with Bittle into a compartment somewhere in the back of his mind and texted him.

_Inglorious Basterds? In 15?_

His phone chimed with the return text before he got his laptop open.

_I’ll start the viewing party_

That break, sitting in a hotel room in LA, turned out to be the calm before the storm. First there was the mad scramble of the last three weeks of the season, fighting first to make the playoffs after what had been an up and down year, then to try to earn a higher position and home ice for as many rounds as possible.

Then, two days before the last game, the phone call from Shitty.

“Can you believe it? I’m getting married, brah! Lardo asked me today, and I said yes!”

“Wait,” Jack said. “She proposed to you?”

“You have a problem with that?”

“No, of course not,” Jack said. “Just imagining her going down on one knee and offering you a ring.”

“Not like that,” Shitty said. “More like, ‘If I’m moving here anyway, why don’t we make it legal?’”

“Yeah?” Jack said, privately thinking that he would have held out for the one-knee thing. It would be okay whether he did it or the other person did. But it should be a little special. “That’s great, Shits. You two are good together.”

“I know!” Shitty crowed. “Thanks, man, for making me come out with you guys that night. That’s what I called to say. Oh, and will you be my best person? I don’t need a bachelor party or anything, and it’s not going to be a big wedding — we already decided that — and we’ll work the schedule around you and Bitty.”

“Bittle?”

“Lardo’s best person.”

“Yeah, of course, Shitty,” Jack said. “Whatever you want.”

The day before the last game of the regular season, Bittle called and said, “You want me to take care of this wedding stuff, sweetheart? You’re going to be busy for, oh, the next two months or so.”

“Don’t say that,” Jack said. “And what wedding stuff? Shitty said it would be small.”

“Small as in friends-and-family small,” Bitty said. “Lardo’s got like six aunts, and they all have kids, and Shitty’s whole firm wants to come. But don’t worry your pretty little head about it. I am a hospitality professional.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “What do you need me to do?”

“I think Ransom and Holster have the bachelor/bachelorette party covered — yes, it’s a joint party, it’s the only way Shitty would agree to it — and I know you can’t make an engagement dinner before the end of the season, so we’re going to skip that event. But can I pencil in a shower the week after the final ends?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “It would be bad luck to plan on winning anyway, so we don’t have to worry about a parade or celebration or anything.”

“Oooh, that’s right, the parade,” Bittle said. “Two weeks after the final, then.”

Jack didn’t know how it happened, but packages with individually wrapped sandwiches with homemade seven-grain bread, nut butter and jelly appeared in the team lounge before the first game of the first series.

“These from your friend the baker?” Tater asked, downing a sandwich with almond butter and blueberry jam in one bite. 

“Yeah, old man, maybe you should marry him,” Poots said, finally, now wearing an A and a father of two, willing to chirp Jack.

“If you don’t, I will,” someone else chimed in to general cheers. 

“See?” Tater said. “You should put a ring on it.”

“Haha,” Jack said. Because really, if it were that easy? He’d have done it, like, yesterday.

Jack barely saw Bittle for the next few weeks, except for once or twice through the glass when Bittle was at a game with Shitty or his former employees, Dex and Nursey. But the sandwiches kept coming (had the team ordered them? Jack really hoped Bittle was getting paid for the materials and the labor) and Bittle kept texting him _Good luck!_ before games and congratulations and occasionally commiseration afterward.

They won the first series four games to two and kept home ice for the next, which went to five games before the Falconers won. Tampa wasn’t as easy to dispatch, especially with starting and finishing on the road, but Summers was having a magical rookie year and he tucked the puck inside the post with a minute left in Game 7 to send all the suntanned Florida fans home disappointed.

“Hey, gotta get more of those sandwiches, right?” Summers said, once they were stripping off their gear.

The team had been photographed surrounding — but not touching — the Prince of Wales trophy, and now they were in the final for the third time in Jack’s career. 

Summers was so excited Jack didn’t know if he would sleep before the next game, and even Poots was walking with the energy of a man about to start something.

Jack was looking forward to it, grateful to even have the opportunity to go out on top, but he was also wondering if his hip really would hold up for another seven games.

“Regrets about retiring?” Tater asked him.

“Nope,” Jack said. “But glad to have one more series.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/justlookfrightened)!


End file.
